Guild Wars 2

Greetings, rangers!

I’ve been gone for a while, since just after the release of HoT, so I never really got into the meat and potatoes of the expansion thus I may be misinformed. So I ask:

Is there any reason to pick core ranger over druid? Have you guys figured it out? Does it really seem to make core ranger obsolete in every way or am I missing something?

Depends on what you’re doing. Druid is an improvement over ranger in PvP because it makes us way more durable and gives us a lot more utility.

For PvE and certain WvW builds, ranger can often be better. Druid doesn’t offer much in the way of damage.

i play core ranger in pvp quite a bit if i want to go all dps, it lets me pick up mm/nm and bm or ws for a bit of defense.

if i want more defensive utility i’ll slot druid and ws and 1 dps line

Fluffball, can you please expand on why you think core ranger may be better for WvW? And does that apply to roaming as well? Thanks

Not always better, just different. Without healing, it can take quite a while to build up the astral force, so you may be better off with the standard LR/survival skills. Sometimes you just want other traits too. The druid traits are nice, but so are things like quick draw, beastly warden, zephyr’s speed, protective ward, MoC, and so on. Especially if you don’t want to use staff which is a major selling point of druid.

Edit: Prophet basically explained what I meant as well.

Imo it is more a question of bristleback/smokescale or not and less a matter of druid or not. WS/NM/BM builds with survival skills and/or shouts work extremly well with those two pets in 1vs1. With old pets it is much harder to compete, regardless of the choosen traits.

Fluffball.8307:

Depends on what you’re doing. Druid is an improvement over ranger in PvP because it makes us way more durable and gives us a lot more utility.

For PvE and certain WvW builds, ranger can often be better. Druid doesn’t offer much in the way of damage.

Grace of the Land and Glyph of Empowerment, yo

From a purely PvP standpoint, I still prefer base ranger to druid. I think it’s the only base spec that I actually still like more than the elite spec.

Speed kills.

Just depends on what you are doing. Some cases pure Ranger will do things faster. All metas, PvE, sPvP, and WvW. Other times the Druid just feels more comfortable and speed is not a necessity.

Organized play, well, you run what they ask and play it well.

OtterPaws.2036:

Fluffball.8307:

Depends on what you’re doing. Druid is an improvement over ranger in PvP because it makes us way more durable and gives us a lot more utility.

For PvE and certain WvW builds, ranger can often be better. Druid doesn’t offer much in the way of damage.

Grace of the Land and Glyph of Empowerment, yo

This.
Druid is the best support line we have.
In terms of CC, Sustain Condi Clear and DPS.

It doesn’t bring much to ourselves, though.

For the record, the PvE I was referring to was not raids or fractals. Druid offers almost nothing for open world. Core ranger is better there for sure, unless you want the conveniences of druid, like natural stride or just an extra heal.

I’ve gotten too used to Natural Stride in open world that I can’t play without it lol.

I like druid’s ancient seeds with condi longbow & with traited staff ;-)
But ya that is roaming in wvw. It works in pve I guess too but its not like lvl 50fractals and the new raid worthy.

Fluffball.8307:

For the record, the PvE I was referring to was not raids or fractals. Druid offers almost nothing for open world. Core ranger is better there for sure, unless you want the conveniences of druid, like natural stride or just an extra heal.

Druid is amazing for open world. It offers a nice ranged cleave option and it is currently like one of the best roaming specializations there currently is.

And for open world – everything is about how fast you can travel around tagging stuff.
Staff + GS with Stride is a change.

From playing ranger quite a bit in wvw. I find it can not compete with a Druid using a staff. At this time in wvw if you do not have a staff you will be run down or kited to death by the new classes and some of the old. You just can not do better for mobility then staff right now. Greatsword is ok if you don’t have druid just make sure you use quickdraw for double swoop. But even then a druid will run you down anyway. On a condi build staff is your positioning tool. On a power build it is your positioning tool and your unreflectable pew pew stick.

Pugchug.8905:

From playing ranger quite a bit in wvw. I find it can not compete with a Druid using a staff. At this time in wvw if you do not have a staff you will be run down or kited to death by the new classes and some of the old. You just can not do better for mobility then staff right now. Greatsword is ok if you don’t have druid just make sure you use quickdraw for double swoop. But even then a druid will run you down anyway. On a condi build staff is your positioning tool. On a power build it is your positioning tool and your unreflectable pew pew stick.

Um, I don’t know. I’ve made good work with LB/GS pew pew in WvW. Just have to watch those reflects.

I dont see how core ranger is better than druid as u can get some reslly strong traits in each tier, that other core traits doesnt bring. For instance if u chose to be a pew pew ranger, in druid u could get 13 condi removed by just switching to CA form, instead of just 2 condis on survival skill which means u must invest into GM wilderness and take up utilith slots. CA form opens up more play and breathing room as u LoS, and we get CA form for free ontop of strong traits. U can get passive 33 movespeed++ or the glyph traits; glyphs r very strong in thst they have low cd, fast castime and good effects like pushback and daze, which u need in this meta. The GM trsit that roots n bleed on cc is also very strong n has synergy with the pew pew ranger. Staff even on berserker stats has a lot of uses and dmg avoidance that u cant give up on. Sadly, another example why druid is superior, at least in pvp n wvw, and HoT content.

I can get the druid traits for me to work in every build thus far, and I’m really liking it because of more kiting and healing capabilities which gives me good escapes.

But I can imagine in some full dps (zerker/viper etc) builds, the ranger traits would be preferred.

“Um, I don’t know. I’ve made good work with LB/GS pew pew in WvW. Just have to watch those reflects.” crapgame

A well positioned Lb ranger can get the jump on a lot of people and kill them. A well positioned lb ranger with a staff can continually be in the best position over and over again. GS is very good vs a certain level of player and below. I find above that level landing the bread and butter with gs is nearly impossible. If you run glass enough to kill with lb and get into melee with gs and they avoid cc you are left swinging at nothing. Sure you might get lucky every now and then but it’s just to slow and predictable. That said it’s still fun to maul people! Play what you you enjoy. Hooray for pretendy fun games! Pew pew!

nacario.9417:

For instance if u chose to be a pew pew ranger, in druid u could get 13 condi removed by just switching to CA form, instead of just 2 condis on survival skill which means u must invest into GM wilderness and take up utilith slots.

Because it takes something like 3 minutes to recharge CA via damage. Obviously in this case you aren’t going to exhaust all your AF, but still you can see how WS is more reliable, you know exactly when your condi clear is ready.

Also I played for years with nothing but SoR as condi clear on a LB roamer. You really don’t need a ton of condi removal for that playstyle. I’ve seen some ranger take only generosity for condi clear. FlopyPotato or whatever his handle is that posts here had a video of him beating Koroshi (a very experienced engi) on condi engi using only generosity and SoR in several extended duels. It’s an old video at this point, but condi engi is no joke in duels.

The problem is druid adds so much survivability and condi cleanse. There is just no reason not to take it. The other traitlines aren’t even that bad, non is totally horrible but druid is kind of a must have for the free sustain and condi cleanse.

Let’s be real. Compared to the other traitlines it would need a nerf. It would propably help if astral force generation would be slower in pvp (like 50% of what it is now). That being said the current rate is absolutely neccessary to make ranger viable. So while I would support such a change they would have to nerf everything else (other elite specs) aswell. Or they should buff the old traitlines to also offer comparable sustain/condi cleanse or really significant damage improvements.

I also dislike that due to the two strong pets we currently have beastmastery is almost must have too. Pet stats should be more baseline. The difference between traited and untraited pet is too high and I am not even talking about the massive survivability advantage 15s swap cooldown offers.

Sevans.4619:

Is there any reason to pick core ranger over druid? Have you guys figured it out? Does it really seem to make core ranger obsolete in every way or am I missing something?

Nope. Druid > Core Ranger.